Exxon & CBS, Clean Up Your Toxic Mess that's Poisoning DePue's Children!
- by: Susan V
- recipient: Exxon Mobil and CBS
Imagine a small town surrounded by huge open storage tanks full of heavy metal waste, with pipes leading to the ground. Every time it rains, toxic metals run down and contaminate the ground and the water beneath it. On dry days, winds blow the tanks’ toxic dust all over town, into yards where children play and gardens grow - into townspeople's homes and into babies’ lungs.
The town, DePue, Illinois, is real, but the “tanks” are really industrial waste “slag” mounds. To make matters worse, one mound sits on a bog, says Village President Eric Bryant, therefore its heavy metals end up in the lake on which the town relies for recreation and revenue.
Now imagine these mounds leaching their toxins on DePue for nearly a century. Over 100 years ago the company that began this pollution, New Jersey Zinc, probably didn't imagine the monster it was creating. But when it became evident, NJ Zinc sold out and was ultimately owned by Exxon and CBS. According to Bryant, both of these companies continued polluting operations, until at last the EPA stepped in and labeled them a Superfund Site.
Finally, in 1995, the townspeople who’d seen lots of sickness and dying fish for generations thought their nightmare would soon end. But the unimaginable happened instead. Two of the richest companies in the US told DePue they didn’t want to pay to remove the mounds. Instead they agreed, only after being sued, to study and plan what to do about the harm their mounds were causing.
Now 20 years later, CBS and Exxon are still “studying” and the “tanks” are still standing and still polluting, and the townspeople have, rightly so, had enough. Bryant says what is most disturbing is the heartless disregard Exxon and CBS are showing for the children exposed to these dangerous toxins.
Sign this petition to join the people of DePue in demanding that CBS and Exxon remove the slag mounds from the DePue Superfund Site - BEGINNING NOW. No more studies - no more stalling - no more excuses. Period!
To Exxon Mobil and CBS:
A look at the Illinois EPA website, outlining the inadequate actions taken so far by Exxon and CBS regarding this ongoing toxic problem, and how hard DePue residents have had to fight for justice, should shame these companies into effective action now. But tragically, it hasn’t.
Millions of dollars spent over 20 years for analysis and studies - putting only bandaids on the pollution, rather than removing the source of that pollution - could and should have been used to remove the source of this pollution years ago.
While Exxon Mobil and CBS, those responsible for paying for the cleanup, have avoided doing what is necessary - getting rid of the zinc slag and phosphogypsum piles that continue to contaminate the town, the lake and the groundwater - babies are being born with heavy metal poisoning, some exposed in the womb from their mothers’ exposures, and spending their entire childhoods playing on contaminated soil and breathing contaminated air, while being deprived of the pleasures of swimming and fishing in the town’s contaminated lake.
What more motivation does Exxon and CBS need to begin at once removing the sources of the pollution that have covered this tiny town and upset the lives of its residents for generations?
Congress is already being asked to change the laws that allow companies like Exxon and CBS to delay removing sources of pollution at superfund sites. It is now, and has been for 20 years, these companies’ moral and ethical responsibility to the people and environment of DePue to remove the source of the on-going contamination that is wreaking havoc with generations of the town's residents and their natural resources.
We demand Exoon and CBS stop looking for loopholes in EPA Superfund cleanup laws and do the right thing - remove these mounds to a safe location off site or properly bury and cover them in a way that will once and for all protect the DePue townspeople, particularly the children, from the serious harm Exxon and CBS already know results from exposure to the heavy metals leaching from these mounds.
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